I dislike Harry Potter, the character. He's a whiny, mostly incompetent, emo kid whose fate is determined almost entirely by his good luck -- from the cradle, quite literally.

E.g., why the **** was he even a good seeker? he hadn't practised ****, he just hopped on the broom and stuff happened. His father was a great seeker too so good genes I guess. That's Harry in a nutshell. Good genes, 0 effort. As a character, he ruins children's view of what's important in life.

But I like Hermione and Ron (the former is a badass witch (even if she turns Harry-like emo sometimes) and the latter is a loyal friend). I LOVE Snape, Lupin and Black (for obvious reasons). Even Voldemort is cool. Generally, loads of good characters.

In what ways are the books poorly written? J. K. Rowling develops the characters immensely well and the way in which she emerges you into her magical world is pretty unrivalled in my opinion. The books are abundant in well written descriptive language, yet they're also easy to read; I fail to see why you think they're poorly written.

I don't like fantasy books, magic and all that stuff, so it's never interested me. My friends knew I had never read the books, seen the films or anything yet still tried to get me to take the quiz to find out what house I was in. Seemed a bit pointless really. They kept telling me how I was like this or that and tried to get me to react to it but I have no idea what they're talking about so I had no reaction.

It's the same with things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings etc. Anything magical or sci-fi or fantasy just puts me off. I can't get into the world of it. And it's a little odd the amount of people who follow it like a religion. Calm down, it's just a few books. Sure, appreciate the story but it's a bit much if you start being aggressive to people who have a different opinion to you.

Harry Potter was basically my childhood, but now that I’m older and look back the plot is so unrealistic and patchy in parts, definitely the work of an average author. Still, it satisfied the deep love I have for concepts to do with magic etc.

As I got older I transitioned to LotR, as it’s a much more sophisticated, complex and mature magical world.

I read the first 2-3 books, thought it was okay but each book seemed to follow the same cycle as the rest. Didn't like the inconsistency with regards to magical powers. Thought JK done a good job at creating this ficticious world of potter and hogwarts. Seems to romanticise the uk public school. Can see why school-kids will find it as escapisim from their dreary school life. Never paid much attention to the films.

I think they're great. When I was a kid I remember not liking the openings of the books, where Harry spends sometimes hundreds of pages before even making it to Hogwarts, but for the most part I loved them. As an adult I appreciate some aspects of the stories that were lost on me as a kid, like the parallels between the issues of the wizarding world and our own society's problems, and that adds an additional layer of enjoyment.

At the moment I'm reading my way through the Philosopher's Stone but this time in Japanese.